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Why do you start with the left shoe instead of the right. It is an impulse, no? You tie your shoes the same way almost every time (well most people do atleast). What keeps you from tying your shoe starting from the otherside? As people we subconsiously desire reptition and this repetition will lend itself to nicely into conventionalism. However, if rules are placed before a person, they will either be compelled to follow these rules and conform to the system, or they will feel a desire to leave the system all together. These impulses created by our compulsion for repetion and rules will create a set of morals for us to follow. Why do we feel guilty when we steal? Would you feel the same way if you were brought up in a system where such actions were customary? If a group of people did something (in your example burning babies) that goes against the standard social norms there is a reason for it to have happened. This reason can be tracked back to a betterment of society/humanity/community. If it did not benefit this group it would not have happened, and the social norms would continue as per normal.

The comment ment that 90% of the people who visit the forum won't be able to understand what is being talked about in the thread. Philosophy is a hard thing to understand for the vast majority of the population, especially if you try to discount religion.

Sorry, if this is garbled and sounds incoherent. I am typing it while drunk and tired.

uglypigs: I assume you mean causality? (Or do you mean casualty? Your spelling was borderline.) I'm not sure that I see the relevance. Causality refers to the fact that all event follow from causes. You could say that people have the morality they do because their parents taught it to them, but I don't think that it relevant in a discussion of what different moral perspectives mean.

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There's not that fine a line between willing suspension of disbelief and something just being stupid.

Why do you start with the left shoe instead of the right. It is an impulse, no? You tie your shoes the same way almost every time (well most people do atleast). What keeps you from tying your shoe starting from the otherside? As people we subconsiously desire reptition and this repetition will lend itself to nicely into conventionalism. However, if rules are placed before a person, they will either be compelled to follow these rules and conform to the system, or they will feel a desire to leave the system all together. These impulses created by our compulsion for repetion and rules will create a set of morals for us to follow. Why do we feel guilty when we steal? Would you feel the same way if you were brought up in a system where such actions were customary? If a group of people did something (in your example burning babies) that goes against the standard social norms there is a reason for it to have happened. This reason can be tracked back to a betterment of society/humanity/community. If it did not benefit this group it would not have happened, and the social norms would continue as per normal.

The comment ment that 90% of the people who visit the forum won't be able to understand what is being talked about in the thread. Philosophy is a hard thing to understand for the vast majority of the population, especially if you try to discount religion.

Sorry, if this is garbled and sounds incoherent. I am typing it while drunk and tired.

sorry to get technical, this is like the second time in like 10 mins that i mention that i was kinda of a cog expert. and i kinda have to explain stuff like this to keep myself sharp. anyways, the "repitiion" you're talking about are called automatic processes like reading for example. If you were to expalin how you did it, you could not exactly explain how. and once the action started, it must run to completion. unlike "normal processing" you can stop and continue the process with little effort. and unlike "normal processing", "unlearning" an automatic process is extremly difficult, sometimes almost impossible. um, look up on the internet for "the stroop effect". and beware of those "kiddie science sites" that try to give you a diffrent explaination other than automatic processing vs. normal processing.

how does a normal process like tying your shoes become practlically an automatic process? in a simple answer, practice i.e. repition.
some people call this the "track race instance theorm " or something like that. ok, say you're 4 years old, and just now learing how to tie your shoe. you do it by yourself about 10 times. now you created 10 correct instances of tying your shoes correctly. now when ever you have to recall tying your shows correctly, you have 10 of these instances for you to recall. pretend all of these instances are race horses, each one of them are correct, and almost exactly the same. it doesnt matter what horse crosses the line first, as long as one of these horses finishes the race, i.e. you recall one of these instances of tying your shoes correctly. now you become older, and now you tied your shoes 10,000 times. you now have 10,000 instances of tying your shoes, or 10,000 "horses" in your shoe tying race :hehe: Its safe to say that out of 10,000, you have a horse that's extremely fast and you recall like how to tie a shoe like cake the time between wanting to do the processing and actually doing the process almost becomes instantanious.

Also, this point of having a lot of instances to recall from is very imporant. if you have 10,000 instances or a million instances to recall form tying your shoe correctly. learing an improper way, or forgetting completely how to tie your shoe is a very difficult task (whats that old saying, "You never forget how to ride a bike"). in order to unlearn and completly forget how to tie your shoes correctly, you must tie your shoes incorrectly the same number, if not more, of time you tied them correctly. This could be a lot, maybe hunderds of thousands of times to completely forget how you tied them correctly.

I believe that a greater division needs to be made in this discussion between morals and ethics. You have been largely lumping them together, except for in one of skillospher's posts. The difference is that morals are objective while ethics are subjective.

Everyone has differing ethics, codes of conduct that guide that their lives. These ethics are determined largely by culture. People's religious and national heritage guide the ethics that they are taught. The idea is that they will adopt the ethics of their people.

As for morals, by definition they are absolute. Morals refer the to the idea that there is an objective system of right and wrong. Whatever cultural ethics may be in a place, morality is unwavering. The problem of course is that people can't agree on what constitutes morality although certain things are rather consistent. One reoccurring concept of morality is "The Golden Rule." This is the idea that whatever is bad for you is bad to do to another. Most of the Ten Commandments were designed to encapsulate these offenses. The problem of course is that many of these offenses have taken on different meanings over the course of time proving that they are in fact ethics, rather than morals.

Quote:

Originally Posted by p3psi

Also, this point of having a lot of instances to recall from is very imporant. if you have 10,000 instances or a million instances to recall form tying your shoe correctly. learing an improper way, or forgetting completely how to tie your shoe is a very difficult task (whats that old saying, "You never forget how to ride a bike"). in order to unlearn and completly forget how to tie your shoes correctly, you must tie your shoes incorrectly the same number, if not more, of time you tied them correctly. This could be a lot, maybe hunderds of thousands of times to completely forget how you tied them correctly.

The problem with this argument is that in the process of trying to forget tying your shoes you remember that the failures are failures. As such, they do not have equivalence with successes. 100 successes + 100 failures does not equal no knowlege. It means that in addition to knowing how to tie your shoes successfully you also know 100 ways to avoid tying your shoes. In other words, the failures make you a better shoe tyer, not a worse one.

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There's not that fine a line between willing suspension of disbelief and something just being stupid.

I believe that a greater division needs to be made in this discussion between morals and ethics. You have been largely lumping them together, except for in one of skillospher's posts. The difference is that morals are objective while ethics are subjective.

Everyone has differing ethics, codes of conduct that guide that their lives. These ethics are determined largely by culture. People's religious and national heritage guide the ethics that they are taught. The idea is that they will adopt the ethics of their people.

As for morals, by definition they are absolute. Morals refer the to the idea that there is an objective system of right and wrong. Whatever cultural ethics may be in a place, morality is unwavering. The problem of course is that people can't agree on what constitutes morality although certain things are rather consistent. One reoccurring concept of morality is "The Golden Rule." This is the idea that whatever is bad for you is bad to do to another. Most of the Ten Commandments were designed to encapsulate these offenses. The problem of course is that many of these offenses have taken on different meanings over the course of time proving that they are in fact ethics, rather than morals.

The problem with this argument is that in the process of trying to forget tying your shoes you remember that the failures are failures. As such, they do not have equivalence with successes. 100 successes + 100 failures does not equal no knowlege. It means that in addition to knowing how to tie your shoes successfully you also know 100 ways to avoid tying your shoes. In other words, the failures make you a better shoe tyer, not a worse one.

these are not "failures". when i meant tying your shoes incorrectly it means that you did it in another way instead of the way you learned it. if you double knot your shoes for example, if you did it more than you normally tied your shoes, say the stanarded "ribbion knot", tying double knots will become automatic when you tie your shoes.

now, you still didnt forget how to tie your "ribbon knot", but when you do intend to tie your shoe in a ribbon knot after repeated tying double knots for a long time, you more than likely will mess up the first few times because the process of tying double knots will take over at first.

remember, these are automatic processes, not normal ones. also, like i said before, completely forget automatic processes can be nearly impossible.

i'll try to make it short. EDIT: looks like i failed on the short part. its hard to smash all of this info into small "readable" posts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esperchld

The comment ment that 90% of the people who visit the forum won't be able to understand what is being talked about in the thread. Philosophy is a hard thing to understand for the vast majority of the population, especially if you try to discount religion.

. yeah i get it now. looks like it went over my head .

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esperchld

Why do you start with the left shoe instead of the right. It is an impulse, no?

first let me say that impules are subjective. and my point is not to show you how many people tie their right shoe first. what im trying to isolate here is the arbitrariness of the action.

let me say that i can agree to everything in your last post, because it is not an attack on my objections. stating why, or how we come to carry out these actions does not show me its objective value. on your view, ethical choices are expressions of mere prefrence.

before i get into any philosophical babble, i want to make it clear that your affirming moral subjectivism. and if thats the case, i can give you dozens of reasons why "anything goes" is problematic.

if your arguing this view, you've got to show me that ethical choices are not arbitrarilly made without appealing to mans desires, and at the same time say that morality has no objective truth value. i dont think you can.

if morality has no truth value, the statement "its wrong molest little children" has no meaning. to commit to your view you must say, "its okay for you to molest children, but not for me."

contrarily, on the objectivist view, michael ruse, an ethicist philosopher states "the man who says that it is morally acceptable to rape little children is just as mistaken as the man who says 2+2=5."

objectivists appeal to a standard of rules that affects all of us. to say that slavery is wrong today, and was wrong 300 yrs ago when slavery was common practice. hitler was wrong even if he succeded in wiping out all the jews, and won WWII. these actions were wrong then, would be wrong if done now, and will be wrong after we die. on the relativist view, these actions have no objective truth value, and become matters of personal prefrence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoSanninWa

I believe that a greater division needs to be made in this discussion between morals and ethics. The difference is that morals are objective while ethics are subjective.

im not going to disagree with your terminology about ethics and morality since i see the distinction your trying to make. that ethics are how we apply these certian morals (if morals exist at all). although, from what ive read and whom ive interacted with, it seems that these terms are used interchangebly.

and it sounds like you are affirming moral objectivism? if you are, i agree that ethics are the subjective varying ways we apply these objective morals.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoSanninWa

Everyone has differing ethics, codes of conduct that guide that their lives. These ethics are determined largely by culture. People's religious and national heritage guide the ethics that they are taught. The idea is that they will adopt the ethics of their people.

this is the cultrual relativist view. which is perfectly compatable with moral objectivism. this view states that these cultures apprehend different moral values. while moral relavitism is says we all have different morals. the two are very different and im glad you've shined light on this difference.

on the cultural relavist view, were allowed to say that cultures who practiced cannibalism were wrong regardless if they believed it was right, because we are appealing to an objective standard of rules that says cannibalism is wrong etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoSanninWa

As for morals, by definition they are absolute.

many will dissagree with you here. they might note that this is a false dicotomy to say that morals are either absolute, or nothing at all. they might argue like this, "to say that something is objective, is not to say that it is absolute. somehing can have objective qualities wihtout being absolute, but universal."

absolutes contend that something is true or false, regardless of the situation. universal qualities say something is true or false given the necessary conditions. these are prima-facie (over-riding) circumstances that warrent a breaking of the rules.

example:
if we were to get down to the technicalities of absolute morals, we run into several problems. if i asked you, "is it wrong to lie?" and you say, "sure, we abosolutly cannot lie." then i bring a chain-saw into your house and ask where your little brother and sister are sleeping, and i tell you that im going to murder them. then, do you really have an absolute duty to not lie to the chain-saw murderer? are you going to tell the truth in that situation?

if we were to pick out any moral absolute, i think its easy to return with a situation where that action will be sceen as inappropriate.

although you could say, lying would be wrong even in the chain-saw example. but then we open a whole new can of worms with..."why is it wrong to lie to the chain-saw murderer?" but if you are to say that lying to the chain-saw murderer is okay, then you are not being consistent with your world view.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoSanninWa

Morals refer the to the idea that there is an objective system of right and wrong. Whatever cultural ethics may be in a place, morality is unwavering.

thats absolutely correct, a wonderful distinctoin. this is the consistent moral objectivist view.

and.

Quote:

Originally Posted by p3psi

sorry to get technical, this is like the second time in like 10 mins that i mention that i was kinda of a cog expert. and i kinda have to explain stuff like this to keep myself sharp.

not at all! this was the purpose of this thread! i encourage stuff like that.

edit: after your (everyones) responses. im willing to move on to a bigger and brighter topics of your (everyones) choice!

I have a friend who majors in Philosophy. Thinking about these things (and more so reading about them) makes my head ache.

I just had a thought. Are we humans getting weaker because of our technology? Other living beings go by "survival of the fittest", but since we have technology, even the relatively weak humans continue to live. Funny how one thinks of such topics in boredom.

awesome. this is the view that at least some morals, are universal. this is also what i believe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lwl12

I have a friend who majors in Philosophy. Thinking about these things (and more so reading about them) makes my head ache.

lol! i completely agree. philosophy = early grey hair.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lwl12

I just had a thought. Are we humans getting weaker because of our technology? Other living beings go by "survival of the fittest", but since we have technology, even the relatively weak humans continue to live. Funny how one thinks of such topics in boredom.

nice theory. maybe we'll evolve in a different ways. and as a nice little qualifier, it seems that morality is mutually excluseive with survival of the fittest. morality seems to aid the survival of everyone.

I have a friend who majors in Philosophy. Thinking about these things (and more so reading about them) makes my head ache.

I just had a thought. Are we humans getting weaker because of our technology? Other living beings go by "survival of the fittest", but since we have technology, even the relatively weak humans continue to live. Funny how one thinks of such topics in boredom.

IMO
Two things, we still have "survival of the fittest", but you can consider it "corporate survival of the fittest". IN industrialized nations, We "survive" more on our brain than on our brawn. In general, stats say that most college educated people earn 250,000 to even 1 million over a life time than those with a highschool education. But when you go to 3rd world nations, the shift goes away from using your smarts to using your muscles.

this point also goes back to the point wether you believe humans are part of the food chain or not. If we are not animals, then i believe we as humans must strive to achieve a state where "survival of the fittest" does not apply.
Civilations should be measured on how they can prolong all life, not let the weak starve so the strong can survive.

well i probably dont belong here since i never studied any kind philosophy.

but here r my beliefs.... if i would chose i'd be a moral objectivist i always belief that there is an ultimate trueth there is a reason behind everything in this world, in that light there is always a right and wrong which r constant and never changing throughout history, its just that we as humans cant clearly c it, thats why we keep on making the same mistakes allover again throughout our history.

objective morals? what good reason do we have to believe that objective morality exists at all? where are these objective morals? surely morality cannot exist like properties of mathmatics, or logic. morality is born with humans, and it will die with humans. once we die, thats it, we dont exist! without punishments imposed by man, how can we be held accountable for any wrong we commit? if we all share the same fate, our actions are meaningless.

objective morals? you guys are funny.

i'll end with Fyodor Dostoyevsky's infamous words, "if there is no immortality, then all things are permitted."

I think it's somewhat inaccurate to say that Nietzsche didn't believe in morality. He certainly acknowledged its existence - and really, how can one not? - but just because people subscribe to something doesn't make it valid or absolute. Nietzsche believed in morality - in the concept (not the reality) of a universal right and wrong - but saw it as a social construction and not something that had any actual use or necessity. Of course morality exists! I don't think he ever disputed that. Nietzsche questioned whether it ought to, whether morality - the concept - was founded on anything worthwhile. (And ultimately the answer was no. An emphatic NO!)

This is what I've gathered from my readings of him, at least - particularly from On the Genealogy of Morals which specifically addresses this issue.

Cool, skillosopher. Have you read David Brink's book on Moral Realism? I hear it's very well argued. If I ever finish my steadily accumulating reading list, 20+ books mostly on science and biblical scholarship, I'll get that and perhaps Michael Martin's Atheism, Morality and Meaning.

Heh.. Wrote a paper last year about tearing down moral structures and institutions to make way for growth potential.

Compared Lao Tze and Nietzche..
Morality is an illusion that is force fed to you at an early age through family, school, and of course: religion..

Lao Tze would agree with Nietzsche that Christianity, a religion that defines “kindness,” is set up to “straighten” the backs of the people merely so that the people can stumble back to religion as a safe haven. When one is religious, one feels guilt for not attending church all week, and finds refuge on Sunday; only to reinforce their guilt the following week, thus, spiraling down a vicious spiral of guilt, redemption, guilt, redemption, so on, and so forth.“Christianity came into existence in order to lighten the heart; but now it has first to burden the heart so as afterwards to be able to lighten it.”

In a similar Taoist story, Chuang-tse describes the art of nothing:
“‘I am learning,’ Yen Hui said.
‘How?’ the master asked.
‘I forgot the rules of Righteousness and the levels of Benevolence’ he replied.
‘Good, but could be better,’ the Master said.
A few days later, Yen Hui remarked, ‘I am making progress.’
‘How?’ the Master asked.
‘I forgot the Rituals and the Music,’ he answered.
‘Better, but not perfect,’ the Master said.
Some time later, Yen Hui told the Master, ‘Now I sit down and forget everything.’
The master looked up, startled. ‘What do you mean, you forget everything?’ he quickly asked.
‘I forget my body and senses, and leave all appearance and information behind,’
answered Yen Hui. ‘In the middle of Nothing, I join the Source of All Things.’
The Master bowed. ‘You have transcended the limitations of time and knowledge. I am far behind you. You have found the Way!’”

By discarding morality, knowledge, body and senses, you discard the limits placed upon you by invisible (yet powerful) forces.

As Lao Tze put it in chapter eleven of his Tao Te Ching:
“Clay is molded into a vessel;
Because of the hollow we may use the cup.
Walls are built around a hearth;
Because of the doors we may use the house.”

Because one has no morals, does not mean one is evil, or good.
It merely increases the human potential of understanding.

My interpretation of Nietzche would be that he strived his entire life to live a language of music, free from judgement, good and evil, and morals. After all, God is ultimate judge of good and evil, and Nietzche put it best when he coined the phrase "God is dead."

Also, to the argument of objective morality.. i can take this one step further and say that all things, physical and non-physical, can be objective. Hell, physicality is objective!

My point is, Morals and Ethics are human inventions.
In order to benefit most, we as humans have to disregard morals.

I doubt any of you would want to read a 2000 word highschool paper i wrote last year, but it clearifies my argument. You can download it here .